France, law makers and the Internet - scary

I'm quite fond of my adopted homeland, France. Sometimes their quirks and ways deserves some vigourous shaking of head (but what country does not?) and sometimes one may get annoyed (same for most places). But mostly they serve great lunches and in general behave very civilised, in short a good place to be.

But this time I'm scared stiff by the lack of understanding by the lawmakers, and if they keep it up I might very well be out of here sooner than later:

I'm talking about the "three strike law" regarding download of copyrighted material. No courts involved, all in the hands of an "above-the-law" agency that can shut down your access to internet based on the instructions from the music and film industry.

My concern is not about the legality or lack thereof if downloading copyrighted material, neither do I oppose a democracy to impose law and order as they please.

But...

The internet has become the backbone of almost all commerce and industry as well as private life. It's the core of many people's social life, aka communication, and no corporation can exist without being able to connect plants, offices, people, suppliers and customers.

If I break the law of the road when driving they will give me a slap or a fine. I can even be a danger to other people's life by driving all too fast and still get away with a mere € 50 fine. Loosing the right to drive requires a very serious offence and the courts will be involved.

Now, if you insult or trespass the "rules" as the music/film distributors see fit they'll take away the road, not only the right to drive, gone will be the access to road and pathways. For all use, walking, getting to school, cycling, everything, lock you up basically. And no court involved, just a rather powerful bureaucrat. Those will soon rank among the most feared and powerful in the land, parallels to the Inquisition will be easy to summon.

The days of bossnapping and suing your employer will be a thing of the (popular) past in France, instead any disgruntled employee will start downloading pirated music or movies in short time effectively putting his employer out of business without much effort nor risk.

Cool eh?

If you in any form or fashion are involved in any commercial activity in France; better be keeping an eye on that legislation now, you might have to think about moving.

[Update May 7: The EU parliament is more sensible... here are some quotes:

"The European Parliament on Wednesday rejected a long-planned revision of the Continent’s telecommunications laws because of a controversial provision to punish Internet pirates.In Strasbourg, the Parliament’s lower house, by a vote of 404 to 56, passed an amendment to the telecommunications package making it illegal for any E.U. country to sever Internet service unless a citizen is found guilty in court, effectively blocking the broad revision."...“The Parliament has taken a stand against the arbitrary cut-off of Internet service to E.U. citizens,” said Alexander Alvaro, a German lawmaker from Bonn. “This is something we simply cannot allow to happen in Europe, allowing punishment to be assessed before a trial takes place.”..."“The legal precedent that would be set — that one is penalized before being tried — is a troubling statement,” said Francisco Mingorance, the European policy director in Brussels for The Business Software Alliance, which represents software makers."

Precisely.]

[Update May 11: Work at French television (largest, private) + disagree with the law proposal + send mail to your MP = lose job. Nice one!]